Mitchell Johnson to put pedal to the medal

The Allan Border Medal winner wants to continue his reign of terror on foreign shores, starting with the three-Test series in South Africa next month.

The left-arm paceman took 37 English scalps in the Ashes series but now Johnson, the first bowler to win the medal since Brett Lee in 2009, and just the third in the award's 15-year history, wants to prove he can keep doing it.

Johnson, who took 65 wickets at 20.97 across all three formats of the game during the voting period, said the reality of winning the medal had still not sunk in after arriving home in Perth yesterday.

"I'm still in a little bit of shock that it's actually happened," Johnson, who finished 12 votes ahead of his skipper Michael Clarke, said.

To win the award marks an amazing return to the world stage for Johnson when you consider he almost quit in 2011 after losing his passion for the game and struggling with a foot injury.

But he said he knew he had turned the corner during the one-day series in England last September.

"It felt then like everything was coming together, all the hard work I'd done," Johnson said. "Playing at international level again in that one-day series, I definitely felt something and went on from there."